Malibu Burns

by Mark Richardson

Overview

Near-future San Francisco is a dark world where reality is changeable and different dimensions overlap.

Teen Malibu Makimura discovers she can feel people's emotions, and senses an ominous voice growing inside her. She lands a job at a women's nightclub drawing surrealist caricatures. One night while drawing a portrait, she feels a sinister emotion projected by a woman named Luciana, who invites Malibu to her Presidio Heights mansion.

There, she makes a peculiar request - and Malibu agrees. With each following act the evil inside her grows, and Malibu begins to wonder if she will ever be in control again... or if she even wants to be.

From the author of The Sun Casts No Shadow and Hunt for the Troll, 'Malibu Burns' is a dystopian noir tale full of surrealistic elements.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9784824151971
Publisher:	Next Chapter
Publication date:	10/06/2022
Edition description:	Large Type
Pages:	378
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.00(d)

Editorial Reviews

2023-01-03
A wildly eclectic SF novel set in futuristic San Francisco from Richardson.

Richardson’s vision of San Francisco in the year 2049 is not entirely unrecognizable. The internet is outlawed, and the police force has been partially robotized; yet people are still free to enjoy drunken reveling and general hedonism. The protagonist, Malibu Makimura, is a 19-year-old movie buff who attempts to make a living drawing caricatures at a women-only nightclub. Malibu has suffered from “suicidal ideation” in the past. By 2049, however, her life has improved (she’s no longer homeless, for one), although the earning potential is limited in her field of work. At the nightclub, she arouses the interest of a mysterious woman named Luciana, who some believe is a witch. She keeps a servant nicknamed Max, who resembles the character Max from 1950’s Sunset Boulevard. She also has enough money to pay certain people to do certain odd jobs for her. And, for some reason, she wants Malibu to burn down local cottages, sometimes with the residents still inside. Why cottages? Malibu gets an innate feeling that certain cottages need to be destroyed. The lives of these cottages “had run their course and they were begging to die.” At least that’s what the voices in her head tell her. It helps that Luciana will reward her handsomely for the service. But why cottages? That’s the novel‘s central mystery. That certain structures deserve a fiery death (at least in Malibu’s mind) also creates some darkly humorous undertones. At one point an inexplicable thought surfaces in Malibu’s head: “Yes, it wants to die,” says a voice in her head as she examines a cottage. Some aspects of Malibu’s life are less than inviting. Her father’s history with LSD is detailed, although this backstory proves to be an undramatic dead end. Likewise, a flashback relating to Malibu’s stay in a mental health facility is a detour that adds little substance to the narrative. This odd, fire-starting protagonist will keep the reader guessing throughout the novel.

A bleak but intermittently humorous psychological novel with an engaging young female arsonist at its center.

Kirkus Reviews